ntence from a letter written by Lowell to Motley when the
outlook for his party was darkest: "The mercantile classes are longing
for peace, but I believe that the people are more firm than ever." Of
the great, silent mass of the people, the true temper seems to be struck
off in a popular poem of the time, written in response to one of the
calls for more troops, a poem with refrains built on the model of this
couplet:

"We're coming from the hillside, we're coming from the shore, We're
coming, Father Abraham, six hundred thousand more."

CHAPTER XIV. LINCOLN'S FINAL INTENTIONS

The victory of the Union Party in November enabled Lincoln to enjoy for
a brief period of his career as President what may be thought of as a
lull in the storm. He knew now that he had at last built up a firm
and powerful support. With this assured, his policy, both domestic and
foreign--the key to which was still the blockade--might be considered
victorious at all points. There remains to be noticed, however, one
event of the year 1864 which was of vital importance in maintaining the
blockade.

It is a principle of international law that a belligerent must itself
attend to the great task of suppressing contraband trade with its enemy.
Lincoln was careful to observe this principle. Though British merchants
were frankly speculating in contraband trade, he made no demand upon
the British Government to relieve him of the difficulty of stopping it.
England also took the legitimate position under international law
and warned her merchants that, while it was none of the Government's
business to prevent such trade, they practised it at their own risk,
subject to well-understood penalties agreed upon among nations. The
merchants nevertheless continued to take the risk, while both they and
the authorities of the Confederacy thought they saw a way of minimizing
the danger. Instead of shipping supplies direct to the Confederate ports
they shipped them to Matamoros, in Mexico, or to the West Indies. As
these ports were in neutral territory, the merchants thought their goods
would be safe against capture until they left the Mexican or West
Indian port on their brief concluding passage to the territory of the
Confederacy. Nassau, then a petty West India town, was the chief depot
of such trade and soon became a great commercial center. To it came vast
quantities of European goods which were then transferred to swift, small
vessels, or "blockade-runners,"